


Where have you strayed, that destruction now comes behind you?

by sealdog



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Game, implied corvo/daud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7336393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealdog/pseuds/sealdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re somewhere on the southwest coast of Serkonos. The last missive from Curnow had placed their pursuers far north in the Dabokva area, making Serkonos as safe a place as any.</p>
<p>The same missive had warned about sightings of Daud in the area, so Corvo really shouldn’t have been surprised when the man himself turns up in the tavern where they’re eating a late breakfast, and slides into the seat next to Corvo.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Done in response to an anon-prompt!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where have you strayed, that destruction now comes behind you?

**Author's Note:**

> anon: could you write a little something about corvo and daud? maybe a few weeks after fleeing the castle, emily and corvo run into daud and emily notices the 'chemistry' between them? (kinda along the lines of emily poking fun at her dad having a crush?)
> 
> 30% written while in the park leeching wifi off the nearby museum, remaining 70% written while sleep-deprived and stuck in the airport. super unbeta-ed, pls lmk if there are words in wrong places OTL
> 
> sry i couldn't fit in more of emily poking fun at corvo OR A DAD JOKE i had a dad joke but ended up going w corvo not rly talking oops rip dadjoke. hope its ok tho anon 0:

They’ve been travelling for close to a year now, moving from place to place whenever the shadows get too long and the neighbors’ glances too lingering. Corvo feels like he should be feeling guilty, or regretful, because this is not the way Jessamine would have wanted Emily to grow up. It’s easy to put to the back of his mind however, when Emily so clearly thrives on the excitement, the movement. She makes friends easily, moves on from them equally easily, and takes to each new place with the same enthusiasm she shows at the prospect of her more…unorthodox lessons.

Callista makes protesting sounds, and tries futilely to keep Emily’s education somewhat on track, and this, Corvo feels wholeheartedly guilty about. He knows he shouldn’t encourage Emily to shirk her lessons with Callista, but its never been easy to say no to her, and it’s even harder now to say no when she asks if they can spend the night on the rooftops, not when he can still see lingering shadows beneath her eyes, not when he hears the occasional muffled whimper coming from her room at night.

This time, they’re somewhere on the southwest coast of Serkonos. It’s their first time here; Corvo hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near his birthplace because it’d seemed like too obvious a hiding place, but Emily had insisted, and the last missive from Curnow placed their pursuers far north in the Dabokva area, making Serkonos as safe a place as any.

The same missive had warned about sightings of Daud in the area, so Corvo really shouldn’t have been surprised when the man himself turns up in the tavern where they’re eating a late breakfast, and slides into the seat next to Corvo.

Seated opposite, Emily perks up from where she’d been drooping over her toast, all the sleepiness from last night’s adventures gone like she hadn’t just been about to plant her face into her plate.

“Corvo. Your highness. Ms Curnow.”

Daud says Emily’s title like he means it, Corvo notes, but he chooses to ignore the gravelly voice to continue sawing at the sausages on his plate.

“Sorry to interrupt your little family brunch, but we need to talk.” Daud shifts, his presence an unwelcome warmth at Corvo’s side. “Alone.”

Corvo waits till he’s done chewing his sausage and swallowed before he looks up at Callisto and gives her a nod. She spares Daud one warning glance before ushering out an unwilling Emily quietly, until Daud and Corvo are the only ones left in the tavern booth.

Daud waits till Emily and Callista are both through the door that leads upstairs before moving to sit across Corvo.

And then he just sits there. And stares.

Figuring that there’s no point letting his food get cold, Corvo continues eating, waiting him out.

“Our mutual friend.” Daud eventually says.

At that, Corvo glances up. In front of him, hands loosely linked on the table, Daud…Daud looks _tired_. Not surprising, considering that the last time Corvo’d seen Daud, he’d been on his knees, asking Corvo for mercy. Corvo keeps tabs on him, via Curnow’s reports, as he does with a whole host of people he’s marked out as noteworthy, but Curnow’s reports never mention how the lines beneath Daud’s eyes have deepened, how there are more threads of silver in his hair.

“Has he…visited you? Recently, that is.” Daud flicks his gaze up to make brief eye contact, before going back to staring at Corvo’s hands. Or rather, as Corvo looks down to see what’s got Daud’s attention, at the Mark peeking out from the cuff of Corvo’s left sleeve.

Corvo shakes his head. The Outsider has been…quiet, for lack of a better word, since they left Dunwall. About the only indications Corvo has had of the Outsider’s continued observation of their lives has been Emily’s occasional off-handed mentions of carved bone trinkets appearing in her room overnight.

“Yeah? Me neither.” Daud shifts in his seat, and sighs, the weariness in his face echoed in the line of his shoulders. Watching him, Corvo feels a twinge of…not pity, never pity, not when he can still feel the Empress’ blood warm on his hands. Kindred tiredness, perhaps.

“Right. Good talk. See you around, Corvo.” Daud leaves as uobtrusively as he came, and Corvo watches him leave, frowning.

Movement at the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he looks over to see Emily slipping through the tavern’s doors to slide into Daud’s recently vacated seat.

“Corvo! Who was that? Was he a friend of yours?” Emily leans forward, and plucks a sausage slice from Corvo’s plate, popping it into her mouth and chewing as she eyes Corvo expectantly. “Will he be joining us?” She asks, mumbling through her mouthful of stolen sausage.

Corvo spears the last few slices onto his knife slowly, thinking very carefully. Emily doesn't seem to recognize Daud, but then, she never talks about her days after the Empress’ death, other than to say that the Golden Cat smelled bad. He’s not sure if she never saw Daud’s face, or if she chooses not to remember.

He finally decides on “An acquaintance,” which she seems to accept readily enough.

“Can we go to the seaside again today?”

“If Callista says yes.”

Emily pouts, but cheers up easily enough when he offers her the sausage-laden knife. She’s been eating more lately, to match her growth, and if Corvo lets himself think about it, it always comes as a surprise to him that she’s growing older, becoming a young woman.

Then she burps, loud and abrasive for her size, before dissolving into giggles and waving at the air in front of her nose, and he thinks, with relief, _no, not yet_.

\---

Two nights later, when Emily has surprisingly enough voluntarily gone to bed early, Corvo swings himself up through the windowsill and onto the roof, and comes face to face with Daud again.

“I forgot how much I missed the weather of Serkonos,” Daud offers as a greeting.

Corvo doesn’t answer, just moves to his usual spot and settles down.

Beyond his initial greeting, Daud doesn’t say anything else. No apologies for what he did, no questions about why Corvo and Emily and Callista are so far from Dunwall, nothing on their mutual friend.

Five hours later, Corvo wakes up to the sun in his eyes and Emily curled against his side, snoring softly.

Lying on his chest is a single crow’s feather.

\---

Time passes, Emily settles a little, grows some more, and the faint frown lines on Callista’s face look like they might not become permanent, after all. At night, Corvo and Emily explore the nightscape of whatever city they’re currently in, and Corvo promises himself that one day they’ll do this in Dunwall, where Emily can stretch her climbing abilities.

The Outsider hasn’t claimed her as one of his, but Corvo thinks it’s already begun, with the way she sometimes pauses mid conversation to cock her head with a distant look in her eye.

Corvo isn’t sure if he should be worried or relieved that the Outsider seems to have limited his attention on Corvo to observation. Some nights, he thinks he dreams of fragmented conversations in the blue of the Void, but they always disappear with the dawn.

Then, on one of their nightly excursions, he and Emily stumble across one of the shrines, and in it, Daud.

“You look familiar,” Emily says, her natural curiosity flashing through the veneer of composed young lady that Callista has somehow managed to impose on her. “Have we met before?”

Daud glances between Corvo and Emily as he stands up, dusting off his pants. “A long time ago, and then again more recently, yes.”

“Ah, Corvo’s acquaintance!” Emily’s brow clears, and she eyes Daud with undisguised fascination. “Well met.”

“And to you.” Daud’s gaze flickers over to Corvo, and whatever expression is on Corvo’s face seems to make Daud’s decision for him. “Say hello to our black-eyed friend for me.”

Corvo watches him slip through the drapes surrounding the shrine, and when he turns back, Emily’s now watching him, an eyebrow arched. She doesn’t say anything, but later that night, Corvo dreams of whale songs and of crimson spreading across the red of Daud’s jacket, beneath Corvo’s hand, washing over the glowing Mark there.

\---

The next time Corvo takes to the rooftops, he’s alone, the Outsider’s Mark glowing on his hand as he blinks from rooftop to roof-edge and up towers and spires, relishing in that tipping, falling feeling into the Void that lasts for all of the split second where he blinks between places. He’s so lost in the sensations that it takes him a while to notice that he has a tail.

And then the chase is on.

The city flashes by in blurs, hastily taken glimpses of architecture long enough to find the next transition point, and then its running and falling, up, and up, and down, and up again. The night feels like theirs, despite the glimpses of lit rooms, the pinprick lights of late sleepers dotting the otherwise dark city.

Eventually, it slows, because it has to. Corvo fingers the last remaining bottle of elixir he brought, and pauses where he’s balancing on the edge of a high building. The telltale flicker stays where it’s stayed all night, a hundred paces away, and Corvo thinks of maybe lifting a hand, doing something to acknowledge it, but instead, he takes a pull from the elixir, and heads home, slowly.

When he gets through the window to his room, Emily is in his bed, feet kicking idly in the air as she reads from one of Callista’s heavier books.

“Welcome back, Corvo. Did you have fun?” She rolls over, and gives him a wicked grin, so like her mother’s.

Grunting noncommittally, Corvo pulls his jacket off and drapes it over the nearby chair. He moves to sit heavily on the side of his bed, and catches one of her socked feet in a hand, tickling the sole.

“Hey!” Laughing, Emily kicks her way to freedom, and scrambles up the bed to shove Corvo into a more comfortable position in the middle of the bed before getting out and pulling the blankets over him in a parody of what he’s been doing for her for years now. What he did for her last night, in fact.

“Old men like you shouldn’t stay out so late,” she says, laughter in her chiding tone. “If he hadn’t told me what you were doing, I would’ve worried.”

Corvo blinks. Was the Outsider giving reports on his behavior to Emily now? Whatever questions are on his lips fade away as Emily bends down, and plants a kiss on his forehead, the role-rehearsal both bizarre and comforting.

“See you tomorrow morning, old man. Don’t sleep in too late!” She takes the lamp with her as she goes, leaving Corvo’s room mostly in darkness.

As Corvo drifts off to sleep, pleasant exhaustion tugging through his body, he thinks he hears a faint chuckle coming from the dark shadows in his room.

“ _Daud_? I see. Your choices never fail to intrigue, Corvo. I look forward to it.”


End file.
